So DH and I are agreed on our top 3 first name (2 boy, 1 girl), but we're fighting over the spelling of all of them! The spelling will slightly impact the pronunciation of each.

I want the original ethnic versions, to match myself and DS. DH wants the Anglicized variants, which is ironic bordering on insulting, when I'm talking cultural preservation. In fairness, though, he's concerned about the convenience of our future child (and the spelling of DS's name is straightforward even for the English). He also finds the original names "ugly."

Anyone else? What did you decide? After this we still need to have the drama-laden middle name discussion.

DDC: I agree, it might be easier if you told us the names. I tend to prefer the easy spelling for names but if the name is ethnic I would go with that spelling. For example my name is the Russian version of Anne or Anna, it is Anya. I love my spelling and wouldn't change it for the world!!

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A crunchy wife to B and momma of identical twin girls G & E, our rainbow
baby C born at home April 2013 and R forever in my heart.

I have this same problem as you. Dh and I decided on Penelope Grace. All of our children have unique-ish spellings of there names. I really like Pynelope, he doesn't. I just want to use the phantom "y" so no one is left out. What did you all choose?

We just looked at names that were identical in Spanish and English.... I made the list somewhat limited but it was really important to us that both families could pronounce the name (albeit slightly differently) and that he isn't going to have to spell out his name constantly. I won't lie though... there was a lot of drama. It's hard having to find names that you both like and that fit those requirements.
And I realize that we're lucky that Spanish and English share a fair number of names.

I prefer traditional spellings, but I agree with some of the other ladies that it's hard to help w/o knowing the names. It's nice to preserve ethnicity, and that might mean using the traditional spelling for that culture! However, I do not like fad spellings of old names, or fad spellings of fad names just to be different.

We didn't really struggle with spellings because our kiddos' names are pretty forthright, although my daughter, Gwendolyn, did have another version - Gwendolen. The latter is a more common spelling for its ethnic background, but the "lyn" tends to be more common and we thought it would be simpler.

We were having a similar chat over here. We finally chose a boy name but the spelling was very up in the air. I really like the traditional spelling(Gaelic) and so does DH but I was waffling because it is a pretty out there spelling for us in the US. We decided to go for it so I am glad to see other mamas supporting traditionalspellin

I have this same problem as you. Dh and I decided on Penelope Grace. All of our children have unique-ish spellings of there names. I really like Pynelope, he doesn't. I just want to use the phantom "y" so no one is left out. What did you all choose?

My SIL was like this, their first two had very old-fashioned names that had "y" so they spelled their third child's name Amelya instead of Amelia. The problem is that people see that and pronounce it ah-meh-LEE-yuh instead of uh-MEEL-yuh. So they just call her Millie, but don't spell it with a "y" anyway so I don't see why they even bothered ...

I understand all about culture preservation. You are doing that in using the name but if spelling it in
a more English way for making it easier on your kid is ALL your husband is asking, my god woman, takd the money and run!